Activity: Data Governance Policies

Objective. The Data Governance Policies provide strategic and operational direction to the enterprise by providing a framework for decision-making about how data will be managed. Data Governance policies recognize that corporate data is a critical corporate resource and will be managed as such. Guiding Principles drive these policies.

Task: Guiding Principles for Information Management

Objective:
New policy requirements should be gathered from members of the Data Governance team such as Data Stewards and Data Owners. These requirements should derive from the overall set of business requirements but can also come from technology and industry best practices. Industry standards will also have a major impact on policy requirements. These requirements should be defined to cover the strategic programme and should also be prioritised for implementation.

Input:

Enterprise Information Architecture

High Level Information Requirements Deliverable Template

High Level Information Requirements

Data Governance Team

Output:

Data Governance Policy Requirements Deliverable Template

Data Governance Policy Requirements

Task: Define Data Governance Policies

Objective:
Based on the requirements, a set of clear policies will be defined in relation to Data Governance. Whilst they are at an overarching level, these policies are at the next level down from Guiding Principles and can be translated into something than can be measured and implemented. Guiding Principles for Information Management should link directly to these new policies.

Task: Approve and Distribute Data Governance Policies

Objective:
The Data Governance Steering Committee will sign-off any new policies or changes to existing policies. Policies will change over time, but are at a level where changes are fairly infrequent. These policies will then be communicated out to the large community and will drive changes to process and measurement techniques.

Yellow Flags

Policies are at too high a level to directly translate directly in process changes or measurements

Policies are changing frequently or need major revisions

Potential Changes to this Activity

This activity should be expanded to cover information governance more broadly, including structured data and unstructured content. Should also make sure that information security polices are covered within this activity.